every time I want to talk to my boss about something work related I ask for a private conversation, because this is the way it should be, at least I see it that way.
I work with several forklifts and mistakenly though 2 were broken because I couldn’t start them. Because we all need the forklifts and my boss was on holiday I started looking for a mechanic within the organization, always informing the substitute boss as well.
Regular boss comes back from his holiday, asks me to come to the office, asks me point blank in front of everyone else to hear what I was thinking to do that. 2 secretaries and 3 coworkers heard the whole story.
I presented my side of the story and after a short discussion my boss a mechanic and me went to check the forklifts were the mechanic started them, so I was wrong all along.
I apologized to them both and repeated I wanted to save time, because boss was on holidays and I wanted to have all forklifts in working condition, because we all use them extensively.
If I was the boss in this situation I’d have conducted the conversation behind closed doors, not in front of the whole office. It feels like mobbing and makes it difficult to trust this person.
Is this a red flag or am I overreacting?
I think the problem op had with this situation and boss’ approach was that it definitely had shades of admonishment, or at least potentially so, hence wanting to know op’s the thought process. I don’t manage people professionally and never have so I’m not speaking from knowledge of best practice, but I do know that in general this isn’t going to be conducive to good outcomes. Necessary or otherwise, if admonishment or at least finding of fault with the behaviour of the person is on the cards doing so publicly is embarrassing and unlikely to foster the goodwill required for that person to think or behave differently since it moves the whole situation out of the framing of learning a lesson about how to do your job in future and in to something adversarial, with the boss now a malign influence to be resented or feared or both and the humiliation in front of peers now also means that person is more likely to feel isolated from them too with their peers are now to be viewed with apprehension as well as the boss. It’s hard to work well and to avoid making mistakes with such factors at play. One such occasion alone, probably not, but if it’s something boss wants to do a lot as a general management strategy, it’s hard to see that going well for anyone involved.
There are a lot of holes in the OP’s story.
First and foremost the OP didn’t state what it was he was asked to explain.
Secondly what did the OP do between the time he tried to find a mechanic and when he had the meeting with his boss.
I have managed people professional for decades. Trust me there a many situations where you have to chew someone’s ass in front of others.